It was longer than a minute. It was the longest half hour in my life.
The path wound between trees and through little gulleys and I had
trouble following it because the sun was going down and shadows half
hid the path. And then I came out in another clearing--a big clearing.
It took me a minute to appreciate the fact that the center of the
clearing wasn't a clearing so much as a depression. A large, neat,
circular depression where small trees, bushes, and grass had been
mashed flat to a pasty smear of green.
And then I saw other things. Bits of clothing--clothing made of cloth
that I didn't recognize. More of the plastic-paper, some wrapped around
lumps of what I imagined was food. I circled the clearing. The path I
had taken was the only exit--or entrance.
And you're way ahead of me again, aren't you? Kelley had been right all
along. The lights the old man had seen the night before were those of
a ship from God only knew where. The young man with the bus had gone
there earlier that evening to pick up his passengers.
The bus driver. The bus driver who had reminded me of a hundred
other people I had known. Or two hundred. Or a thousand. And his
curious-faced passengers, none of whom had gotten out to stretch their
legs or buy a candy bar or chance a nickel in the coke machine or take
advantage of the pause that refreshes.
I looked round the clearing again. Before they had gotten on the bus,
they had changed clothes and then ... they had had a picnic.
Which I suppose was as good a way as any to start their first day on
Earth.
* * * * *
The cabin was small and cozy and smelled of pine and cedar and fish. I
sat on one of the bunks and pawed through a suit-case while Fred moved
around and lighted kerosene lamps and played boy scout with the fire
place. I found what I was looking for and then discovered a glass on
the window sill. I wiped it out, thinking all the time about detective
stories where the private eye took his straight--in a dirty glass.
Fred didn't approve of drinking on fishing trips and his plump face
showed it.
"You look scared, Charley."
"I am."
"Something to do with going into the woods back there?"
"That's right. A lot to do with it."
He sat on the bunk opposite me and concentrated on tamping tobacco into
his pipe. "You wouldn't care to tell me about it, would you?"
"Sure, I'll tell you," I said. "I'll tell anybody. I'll tell the whole
world." I tilted the glass to my lips and let the liquid burn its way
down. "It started with a damned good friend of mine named Kelley." And
I told Fred the same story that Kelley had told me. And I told him what
I had discovered back in the woods.
Fred laughed. "You're taking it too seriously, Charley. If you did some
research on it, I'd bet you ten to one that you'd find a natural cause
for everything."
"I've done some research," I said tightly. "Only I didn't know that I
was doing it at the time."
I felt a little reluctant to talk. This wasn't the sort of setting
where you talked about an invasion from another world. The door of the
cabin was open and I could smell the lake and the night air and the
nearby pines. It made it seem so damned unreal.
"What kind of research?"
"Nothing intentional--just stuff I picked up every day." The level in
the bottle went down another half an inch. "They're running a regular
commuter service, Fred. They're bringing them in by the thousands. By
the hundreds of thousands. And all within the last few years."